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Looks as though Philips wants to make +RW the standard. Does this mean cheaper and faster drives? YES!
Looks as though Philips wants to make +RW the standard. Does this mean cheaper and faster drives? YES!
Quote
The consumer electronics giant's semiconductor division on Monday debuted the main guts of a DVD+RW drive, including an integrated chipset, optical pickup unit, firmware and reference design, that can record speeds up to 8X. The company will license and sell components for the drive and expects manufacturers to have them available in the first half of next year.
"In the PC world, time to market is everything, and the rational here is to help drive makers to hit those tight windows and give them the quickest time to market," said Roger Gregory, a marketing manager in the company's semiconductor group.
Philips holds key patents for the DVD+RW format and stands to make significant revenue from royalty fees if the DVD+RW format becomes the dominant one in the market. The company has been one of the major promoters of the DVD+RW format along with Dell Computer, Hewlett-Packard and other members of the DVD+RW Alliance. The other major formats in the DVD-rewritable market include DVD-R, DVD-RW and DVD-RAM, which are being promoted by another industry group called the DVD Forum.